Rooftops and Reapings
by MalTease
Summary: Every year, on the night before the Reaping, the Mellark brothers follow a tradition made of rooftops and stars. Rated M for language.


**This is a story I presented as a gift to trippy41 for the Hunger Games Spring Fling Exchange. I truly encourage you to have a look all the amazing stories there are there, you'll definitely not regret it ****.**

**I would like to thank ameiko for her amazing beta work on this story, jeeno2, salanderjade, sponsormusings and bigbigbigday006 for their total and unwavering support! **

**For those of you who read my ongoing story, Perspectives, I truly apologise for the delay in uploading the final chapter … it is proving to be very difficult to write … however as a hint, it sort of picks up when this story ends. I hope you like this story, would love to hear what you think. Big hugs! xx**

I rest my head on the cool ceramic, swallowing repeatedly in a vain attempt to keep my nausea at bay. I've been in and out of the bathroom all afternoon, but I've practically locked myself inside since dinner, throwing up at regular intervals, until I'm at a stage where I'm practically dry heaving bile, and admittedly rather painfully.

The Reaping is tomorrow, and like every year, upchucking any food I've ingested in the days before it is my usual reaction to its approach.

"Hey Tiny, you doing okay in there?" asks Barley from behind the door "Managed to puke the slice of cake from your tenth birthday yet?"

I roll my eyes and groan. There are times where I do find my brother funny, but this time just happens not to be one of them. "Come back in an hour," I spit out, "and you can go through my junk to check," I tell him as I accompany my invite with another bout of retching.

"Eew, pull yourself together, bro," he replies, his tone betraying sympathy and disgust at the same time, "Naan is waiting for us on the roof, get yourself out of there."

Besides my nausea inducing fear, spending the night on the roof is another yearly tradition for my brothers and me on the night before the Reaping. It started out when I was twelve, on the eve of my first Reaping. I was hysterical with terror, sobbing all day and completely inconsolable. At fourteen, Barley was at that age where he had got over his first fears, but was still living with the threat of a seemingly endless series of Reapings looming in front of him. It had not taken him long to join his tears with mine, as we clung to each other in the corner of our room which we reserved for crying after Mother's rages.

Naan had taken us up on the roof that night to see the stars because _he had two Reapings to go and he couldn't handle two weeping brothers just then! _and it had become an annual event ever since. Naan has been free of Reapings for the past two years, but he still makes it a point to spend the night with us on the roof. He is really a rock for both of us, similar in character and temperament to Mother but able to channel these traits into support and encouragement, rather than rage and resentment. He is stern and strict with both of us, but he spurs us on and keeps us sane. Barley and I are lucky to have him, especially on nights like this, when both of us are practically falling apart in fear.

I brush my teeth and rinse my mouth of the acidic taste of my vomit, and climb out gingerly from our bedroom window onto the slanting tiles of our roof. Naan has laid out blankets and pillows, as well as a basket of leftover cupcakes from today. The lights in the kitchen are still on but Mother is already in bed, I guess to calm down after the yelling session Barley and I were subjected to earlier this evening. We were called useless, ungrateful, cowards, careless and rude, presumably her way of saying goodbye, _just in case_. Her words don't really affect me anymore – I stopped taking offence at what she yelled at me years ago.

As we settle down on the roof and start sharing a bottle of cider, Delly Cartwright, my best friend and neighbour, comes out on her porch and waves to us. "Heard you up there," she calls out softly, "still keeping up the family tradition?"

"Hey Dells," I reply with a small smile as I shift my body to look down at her. "Would you like to come up here with us?" I notice that she's looking pale, and her eyes are puffy and worn. Like me, she definitely needs some distraction.

To my surprise, she shakes her head with a rueful smile. "Thanks, but I can't," she replies. "Nate…is not doing too well. I think I'll just stay with him, and get him through the night."

I understand enough not to push her. At thirteen, her brother has many, many Reapings in front of him. Of course he's not doing too well. No one in Panem between the ages of twelve to eighteen is doing well tonight. Taking into account the state of mind of both the possible Tributes and their loved ones, one can safely assume that the Panem outside of the Capitol is a pretty wretched place to be in until tomorrow evening.

"And how are you holding up?" I call down softly.

Delly's smile falters and I see that her eyes shine with unshed tears. "I'm scared, Peeta," she replies in a small voice.

I swallow back a lump in my throat. "Yeah, me too," I rasp, "but tomorrow night this will be over, okay? We'll hang out at my house, Dad will make his usual feast of cookies," I add, trying to channel some certainty in my voice. It's almost impossible to think of a tomorrow night without envisaging all sort of loss. Someone from our District is about to be sacrificed to the Capitol. It's not something that can be forgotten with a plateful of my Dad's stuff.

"Good luck, Delly!" chimes Barley from behind me. "Don't worry too much, we'll make it again this year!" he adds encouragingly. He is at this last Reaping, scared like the rest of us but also almost giddy with relief. I feel envy and resentment as Delly and I share a look of understanding before she waves again and crosses back to her house.

I move to settle down on the blanket but Barley did not miss the look that Delly and I gave each other.

"You'd better not give me crap," he snaps angrily. "It's not like I didn't have my own share of Reapings. I started two years before you!"

I turn my head and fix my stare on a ruffled corner of the blanket I'm sitting on. He's right of course. I'm being very unfair to him. "I know, Barley, and I'm sorry. But I have three more Reapings to survive, and I want to be in your place right now," I reply.

"Don't mind him," Naan interjects as he lies on his back, staring at the starlit sky. "He was just like you on the night before my last Reaping. Shut up, Barl," he adds as our brother moves to protest.

We lie down in silence for a few minutes, all of us engrossed in our thoughts. I think of tomorrow, of the day after, and of the day after that. Technically, the odds are not badly against me, at least when I compare myself to the eighteen year old Seam boys who have been adding on their names over and over again to avoid starvation for their families. I _should_ survive tomorrow, only then, I'm not really sure what I am supposed to be doing after that. I have less than two years left at school, and then the huge emptiness which being the youngest of three brothers brings with it.

I don't really know how to do much besides baking, frosting cakes and painting. I do moderately well at school, and maybe if I really set my mind to it, I might perhaps get an administrative job at the Justice Building. For obvious reasons though, openings there are few and far between. Ever since I started to fill in my brothers' t-shirts, Dad has been casually asking around other tradesman and merchants if they would be willing to apprentice me, but no tradesman in Twelve manages to have any sort of business that would require anyone other than their sons to work for them. A future in the mines looms ahead of me, and more and more often I find myself taking deep gulps of air as if they were my last, as I paint the sky in all its shapes and forms while trying to keep the nightmares of darkness at bay. Increasingly often, I find myself wondering, just like Mother, what exactly my use in this world is.

My glum thoughts are, as often is the case, interrupted by my middle brother.

"Tiny, you're too quiet. Talk!" he cries as he punctuates his last word with a kick in my shin.

"What the hell do you want me to talk about?" I reply with gritted teeth.

"Since when is finding something to talk about a problem for you? Stop worrying about tomorrow and tell me something good," Barley answers. When I fail to reply, he blows out a deep breath and munches noisily a cookie. "It's going to be someone from the Seam," he mutters, "it's always them. By the time they're your age, they don't even bother to count how many times their slips are in there anymore."

My heart sinks. And my lungs refuse, _just refuse, _to breathe for a very painful moment.

"Twenty," I gasp before I can stop myself.

"What?"

"Nothing. Nothing!"

"What are you talking about?" Barley insists, while Naan sits up and gives me a reproachful look. He's always been too intuitive for his own good.

"It's Katniss, isn't it?" he asks gravely, "she's the one with twenty slips, and you know that because you've been counting."

I turn away, my cheeks burning in shame.

"Peeta."

"Shut up."

Barley stares at me incredulously. "Are you seriously still hung up on the Everdeen girl?" he demands. "Don't you even feel slightly pathetic?"

_You have no idea…_

Naan moves awkwardly on the slanting tiles and tries to come between me and Barley. "You're not helping, you asshole,_" _he hisses at him before slumping down next to me. I steel myself for his usual pontificating lecture but his tone is surprisingly mild.

"Peeta…it's been a long time, and you've never even spoken to her," he begins gently. "What exactly are you waiting for? What exactly are you crushing over? A figment of your imagination?"

My brother makes a very valid point. The butterflies in my stomach that make their appearance every time I think about her beg to differ though. "I know," I whisper almost unintelligibly. "It's just that we don't really have any reason to talk to each other, so it never happened."

Naan looks at me sceptically. "You're in school together, you're the same age, she trades with Dad, don't you think those are good enough reasons?" he asks.

He is right of course, but there is one insurmountable reason for never having the courage to speak to her at school. This reason is a dark, grey-eyed, handsome giant boyfriend who towers over me and who can pretty much shoot my eyes out if they happen to linger on Katniss for more than two seconds. I'm not going to tell my brothers this – there are only so many levels of low which I will allow myself to sink into before them. And it's not like I haven't noticed other girls – I spend most of my waking hours looking and thinking about girls. It's just that …I compare most girls with her. And for some reason, they don't fare very well in that comparison.

I glare at him in response, rather unfairly, and huff in impatience. "It's the night before the Reaping, do you want to spend it talking to me about Katniss Everdeen?" I demand annoyed.

Naan and Barley look at each other and shrug. "Well, it's not like there is much else to talk about is there?" replies Barley, "and honestly Tiny, she has a high chance of getting reaped tomorrow or in the final years so you might as well just get on with it while you're still in time!"

"Fuck you" I growl, furious at being reminded just how vulnerable Katniss' position is. I suddenly feel ashamed of my seven slips. And even more ashamed of being so terrified when ultimately, the chances of my name being picked are so slim.

"Barley, this is a new low, even for you," Naan snaps. Barley tries to protest, or to defend himself, but before the second I open my moth, our older brother interjects again. "Shut up, both of you," he orders, "or we'll just go downstairs and you can keep on throwing up and crying for all I care."

"That was Tiny not me."

"I said shut _the fuck _up."

Barley and I know enough not to aggravate our older brother anymore, so for a while we just lie in silence. Even though I'm seething, the calm of the night actually helps me relax. Just as I was starting to dose off, Barley pelts me with a pine cone that has somehow found itself on our roof.

"You mad at me, Tiny?"

"No."

"Liar. You're so pissed off at me aren't you?"

"Shut up, Barley."

"Just say it."

"Shut up."

"Say it!"

"Yesss Barley, I'm mad at you, happy now?" I cry in exasperation.

"Very! But I have some news that might make you even _more _happy."

I sit up and glare at him. "I highly doubt it, but what?" I ask sceptically.

He grins at me and wiggles his eyebrows. "Hawthorne was with a girl at the slag heap. And she wasn't Katniss Everdeen," he announces, looking extremely pleased with himself.

It takes me a few seconds to process this bit of information. "That cheating bastard," I finally manage to sputter.

"No, you idiot," Barley explains, rolling his eyes. "He's not cheating on her because he's not dating her," he adds with a wink.

I'm so shocked at this bit of information that a little while passes before I whack my brother on the head for being such a smug bastard. She is not dating Gale Hawthorne. Not dating him. NOT.

"How long have you known?"

"A while," he replies airily.

"And why the hell didn't you tell me before?"

"How could I have known that you're still pining after her?!"

"If I get reaped tomorrow, do you know how much you will regret keeping this to yourself?" I ask. _I won't get reaped. I won't._

"You won't get reaped you idiot. Don't even speak about such things!" he replies, glaring at me. I may have pushed him a bit too far, but I don't care. Let him stew in his own guilt juice.

"I'm off to get some more cider from the kitchen," I announce, suddenly needing a minute to myself. Barley makes as if to move after me, but Naan holds him down. "Take your time," he tells me seriously.

I find Dad intent on a tray of cookies, his face grim with concentration as he decorates them, each one laced with its own, different design. I don't need to look at them to know that he is designing on each cookie a different landmark from our district. They smell delicious, but he always refuses to let me have one. These are the cookies he makes every year for the District Twelve tributes, and he seems to believe that it will bring me bad luck if I ever had to take one. I'm not superstitious, but even though I am sorely tempted, I never gather enough courage to taste one. So I just keep wondering whether they're good as they look, especially since there is no way of knowing. No one who actually gets to taste them ever lives to tell the tale. I shiver at the ominous direction my thoughts are taking and force a smile as I sit on a stool next to the counter.

"It's nice of you to do this, Dad," I begin rather awkwardly.

He gives me a gentle smile. "I think it's the least I can do," he replies, to my confusion.

"Why?" I ask, baffled. I fail to see what possible responsibility Dad can have with respect to the Reapings.

"Because as a parent, as an adult even, I should be able to protect the children of our district, but that right is denied to me, son," he replies sadly. "All of us fail you as parents, but at least like this our Tributes can get a final treat from home to take with them, for whatever it's worth."

I don't know how to answer this, so I sit in silence for a minute, watching him work. There is a strange atmosphere in the room, with many unsaid words looming over us like a cloud made up of awkwardness.

Dad has always been a gentle rock in my life, the hand I clung to when I was little, and the sleeve I used to wipe my tears after a particularly nasty tirade by Mother. When he was home, he used to stop the blows, when he was not, he used to tend to them. He bought me colouring pencils, and sketch pads from his very hard earned money, and refused to allow me to stop drawing, even though it was an expense that Mother would have gladly foregone. He says I'm his blessing and that I fill his house with colour. I say that he's my blessing too, and that he fills my life with kindness. It's been too long since I told him that I loved him. I think that he would probably like to hear it again sometime.

"Dad?"

"Yes?"

I look at him, and I feel a lump in my throat, so I say nothing.

"Tell me, son," he prods me gently.

"Dad…tomorrow, after the Reaping, can we -" I stop and take a deep breath, "can we talk a little?" Surely he will know how much I love him, if I'm willing to share _her_ with him.

Dad seems to understand, and gives me a long look. "Why don't we talk now?" he asks as he rubs his hands with a kitchen towel.

"Because … I want to talk to you about a girl, and I want to make sure that she's safe before I tell you about her," I murmur in reply.

"It's the Seam girl right? Kat-"

"No don't say her name," I interrupt quickly as I squirm in my chair. "Tomorrow, after the Reaping, Dad. I will tell you all about her, I promise."

That is a promise that I will, of course, never get to keep.

I will forever regret not having that conversation in the kitchen, especially since my relationship with everyone I loved changed after the Reaping. But in hindsight, everyone gets to be wiser, isn't that right?

Xxxxx

It's a warm evening, and I am on the roof, breathing deeply the cool breeze that also carries with it the welcome, happy sound of my beloved son's laughter. The front yard is decorated with balloons and streamers, and is lit with long torches that are placed strategically out of reach from the thirty, boisterous kids that are celebrating Aidan's birthday with rowdy games and enormous slices of cake.

My son is twelve today. And he is safe…at least from anything besides a sugar rush.

It hasn't been an easy day to face, and neither were the weeks preceding it. The nightmares made sleep next to impossible, and the mornings where Katniss could not get out of bed appeared with greater frequency. I also found myself having to spend more and more extra time in the bakery after closing to fight off treacherous memories, in the comfort of my solitude. We were hardly able to hold it together for our son's party, so Alba, our daughter, decided to take over supervision duties, and to send us off to rest and calm ourselves down. Aidan knows nothing of this, of course. He knows about the Games, and the fact that his parents were Tributes, even though we tried to limit his knowledge of the role we played - in them and in the war that followed – as much as possible. He knows that the Games are part of the history of Panem, but he still does not seem to have realised just what went on in them. He stopped asking why his mother sometimes seems far away, or why there are days when I need to stay away from them, and has so far accepted our quirks as part of his normality. He still doesn't grasp, however, why his twelfth birthday is so sadly symbolic for us, and how we dread the day when he will finally realise what his mother and I were expected, and made, to do in those Games.

He will be upset when he realises that both of us have blood on our hands. He will be shocked, hurt and scared, just like his sister was before him. But I hope that he will understand, and will appreciate just how lucky he is to be a happy twelve year old boy and not have face the fear we had had to deal with at his age. I close my eyes, reliving my own twelfth birthday, so many years ago, at the Justice Building. I still feel my father's strong hand gripping mine as I was made to give blood samples and take on medical tests for a purpose that even to this day I still can't fathom. My father kept whispering that he was sorry that day. I whisper sorry to him now, for not managing to keep him alive – for unknowingly causing his death, for not telling him that I loved him as often as I should have. He was so brave, so strong. Even the thought of my children having to face the possibility of a Reaping fills me with the most indescribable of terrors, and yet he was there for me all though it all, gentle and unwavering in his support.

"May I join you?" the quiet voice of my wife asks behind me.

I do not hesitate. "Please do," I whisper, reaching out for her as she sits besides me.

"We need to start explaining things to him, Peeta," she tells me sadly. "He is going to realise that something is wrong, sooner or later."

I nod silently. Our Aidan, scatterbrained and careless, might not be the most perceptive of lads, but at some point, even he will notice the lack of sleep, the listlessness and the worry of his parents.

"It's not going to be an easy conversation to have," I finally reply.

"But it needs to be done," Katniss finishes for me, "he needs to know before someone else tells him."

She's right of course, but I just lie down on my back and stare at the stars in silence. Within a few minutes, she lies down next to me and seeks comfort from my arms, which I gladly give her. We lie in silence for a while, the squeals and yelling of Aidan and his friends interrupted at regular intervals by Alba's gentle scolding. Delly's youngest, Ben, offered to come and help supervise the children with her and Katniss agreed before I even had the time to protest. He has taken up the unacceptable notion of courting my daughter, and I am not particularly keen on this arrangement. As soon as I recover my wits, I'm going to have a thorough chat with this young man. Katniss will not be pleased. For some strange reason, she seems to like Ben Styles almost as much as my daughter.

"What are you frowning about?" she murmurs as she nuzzles my neck.

"Ben bloody Styles," I reply, unable to fight off an indignant growl as the sound of my daughter's laughter travels to the roof.

"She's happy and she's young. Let her be," my wife replies, placing gentle kisses on my neck.

I mumble something incoherent and all thoughts about lanky, dark haired sixteen year old boys vanish from my thoughts for the time it takes me to kiss my wife and leave her breathless. "I love you," she whispers as I break away.

Even after all these years, it still feels like I'm hearing it for the first time. "I know it's still hard for you to say it," I reply softly, "thank you, I love you too".

"We need to go down soon," she reminds me with a rueful smile. She's right. In a few minutes, the parents of our little guests will be showing up to take them home, and common courtesy dictates that we should be there to greet them. I'm not sure I'm quite ready to leave this haven yet. Roofs seem to have a calming effect on me.

"Did I ever tell you how my brothers and I used to spend the night before the Reaping on the roof?" I ask.

Katniss shakes her head and smiles. "No, I don't think you ever did," she replies, "but I want to know all about it."

So I tell her. I tell her about Naan, serious and protective and oh so strict with me and Barley. I tell her about my crazy, annoying middle brother, who was a jerk but who used to make us laugh with his ill thought ideas and initiatives. I tell her about the nights on the roof, my tears, and I tell her about my father and his cookies. As I recount this, she finally realises why he had brought them for her the day she volunteered instead of Prim, and looks up to the stars to whisper her gratitude.

"I miss them, Katniss," I confess after I finish talking. "Just as you miss Primrose, I miss my family, so much."

She laces her fingers through mine, and brings my hand to her lips. "You're not alone, you know," she tells me seriously. "you have me, Alba and Aidan, and we love you more than you can possibly imagine."

I do feel alone sometimes, but then I remember my family, and my life is once again full of their warmth and love, and just _them. _

"I know," I reply with a small smile.

"And they're still here, you know," she adds and sits up, pulling me with her. "Look at Aidan, that thing he does when he laughs, that little clap, that's all Barley," she grins, pointing at our son as laughs that contagious guffaw of his at something a friend of his is telling him.

I grin back at her because I realise that she's totally right.

"Alba's eye roll and the cocking of her head to one side when she scolds Aidan?" she continues as she prompts me with a look.

"Naan," I reply, smiling widely. "And her childhood game of spreading her toys all over the house and pretending to find them in the street? The one where she used to pretend to take them to the hospital to take care of them?"

"Prim," she replies wistfully as she strokes my face gently.

Perhaps the loved ones that we lost still live through the loved ones that we gained after all.

"Are they safe? Our children, I mean," I ask, seeking reassurance from my wife. Only she can make it believe it.

"They're safe and they're happy," she replies, "because that's what we do you, you and I…"

"We protect each other…"

"And we protect them. Together."

"Together," I repeat as I lean in to kiss her gently.

"Mom! Dad! Can you please stop?! There are twelve year olds in the yard!" Alba shrills from behind us, as she leans out of the window that from the attic leads to the roof. "At your age, honestly!" she scolds with her usual eye roll. "I think you should come down. The party is almost over" she adds.

Her mother and I stand up and move towards the window, where we hear her talking to Ben. "Seriously, they're always kissing!" she complains.

"You're telling me about that? At least your pa's hand is not always stuck to your ma's ass!"

That does it. I am slowly and steadily starting to loathe Delly's kid. I need to remind myself to have a chat with my daughter in the coming days. And I might have to rethink her curfew.


End file.
